Friday Farming: At 84, Lander horseman still makes hay the old-fashioned way

 

At 84, Lander horseman still makes hay the old-fashioned way

Today In Wyoming's History: Major Gale "Buck" Cleven

Today In Wyoming's History: Major Gale "Buck" Cleven:  

Major Gale "Buck" Cleven

 

In the Apple TV series Masters of the Air, one of the characters is Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, who reports himself as being from Casper twice in the first episode.

Who was he, and was he really from Casper?

Clevens was born in Lemmon, South Dakota, on December 27, 1918, just after the end of World War One.  His family moved to Casper when he was still a child, although I'm not certain when, as they moved first to Lusk, in 1920.  He likely was a 1937 graduate from Natrona County High School, the only high school in Casper at the time (Natrona County had a second one in Midwest).  Following graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wyoming while also working on drilling crews as a roughneck.

He did, in fact, move at some point to Casper, where he was employed as a roughneck on drilling crews.  He used the money he earned to attend the University of Wyoming and was enrolled by the fall of 1937, presumably right after high school.  His name appears in the social pages of The Branding Iron as having had a date attend the men's residence hall October dance.  He was a guest of a different young lady at the 1939 Tri Delts Halloween sorority dance.  The same year he was apparently in a fraternity, as he's noted as having attended the Phi Delta Theta dance with, yes, another young lady.  In February 1939 he went to a fraternity dance with Nova Carter, whom I believe I'm related to by marriage.  A year later, February 1940, he took a different gal to the same dance.

He left UW in 1941 to join the Army, intent on being a pilot.  The October 21, 1943, edition of the UW Student Newspaper, The Branding Iron, notes him (inaccurately) as being stationed in North Africa and having received the Distinguished Service Cross, which he in fact did receive for piloting his badly stricken plane from Schweinfurt to North Africa, the flight path taken on that raid. This even is depicted in Masters of the Air.  The Branding Iron noted that he had attended UW for three years.  In June, 1944, the student newspaper reported him a POW.  He's noted again for a second decoration in the March 2, 1944, edition, which also notes that he was a Prisoner of War.

As depicted in Masters of the Air, his B-17 was in fact shot down over Germany.  He ended up becoming a POW, as reported in the UW paper, at Stalag Luft III for 18 months, after which he escaped and made it to Allied lines.  He was put back in the cockpit after the war flying troops back to the United States.

Following the war, he was back at the University of Wyoming.  He graduated from UW with a bachelor's in 1946.  He apparently reentered the Air Force after that, or was recalled into service, and served in the Korean War, leaving the Air Force around that time.

He was on the Winter Quarter 1954 UW Honor Roll and obtained a Masters Degree, probably in geology, from UW in 1956.  Somewhere in here, he obtained a MBA degree from Harvard and an interplanetary physics doctorate from George Washington University.  

He married immediately after the war in 1945 to Marjorie Ruth Spencer, who was originally from Lander Wyoming.  They had known each other since childhood.  She tragically passed away in 1953 while visiting her parents, while due to join Gale at Morton Air Force Base in California.  Polio was the cause of her death, and unusually her headstone, in Texas, bears her maiden name.  Reportedly, her death threw Cleven into a deep depression.  He married again in 1955, to Esther Lee Athey.

His post-war career is hard to follow.  He flew again during the Korean War, as noted, which would explain the gap between his bachelors and master’s degrees, and probably his doctorate.  He's noted as having served again during the Vietnam War, and also has having held a post at the Pentagon.  He was in charge of EDP information at Hughes Aircraft.  Given all of that, it's hard to know if an intended career in geology ever materialized, or if his World War Two service ended up essentially dominating the remainder of his career in the form of military service.  The interplanetary physics degree would and employment by Hughes would suggest the latter.  His highest held rank in the Air Force was Colonel.

Following retirement, he lived in Dickenson, North Dakota, and then later at the Sugarland Retirement Center in Sheridan.  He died at age 86 in 2006, and is buried at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his marker noting service in three wars.

Watching the Morph. How the news gets spun by the right and left in the age of the unreliable Internet

Wyoming has a very large Indian Reservation, the Wind River Reservation, which is home to part of the Shoshone Tribe* and also home to the Arapaho Tribe. It's also the home to quite a few non Indians as well.

The Wind River Reservation has a fascinating history which includes sort of a smoldering dispute which has run for decades about the proper boundaries of the Reservation. This dispute is complicated, but what it basically surrounds is withdrawals of certain areas from the Reservation by Congress, so that these areas could be opened up for general homesteading outside of Tribal jurisdiction.  I'd note here, and it is very significant, that areas of Reservations could be, and were, opened up for settlement within Tribal boundaries.  Contrary to what is very evidently the general belief, you do not have to be an Indian to own land within a Reservation.  Indeed, the Wind River Reservation includes part of the Midvale Irrigation District, which is a very significant irrigation district which is mostly farmed by non Indian farmers who live within the Reservation. 

One of the areas that have long been disputed by the Tribes is the area around the city of Riverton. Riverton is the county seat of Fremont County, and it is located on lands that were opened up for homesteading in 1905 by the United States.  It's generally been nearly universally believed by all but the Tribes that this event took the area in and around Riverton outside the Reservation, with the Reservation bordering it.  Indeed, the general belief would be that, if you were driving West on the highway, you'd enter the Reservation just outside of Shoshoni, leave it again rapidly, enter the framing belt where Riverton is, and then cross the river back on to the Reservation, and then leave it again just before you entered Hudson.  Prior legal decisions support this view.

Recently, however, the Tribes petitioned the EPA for a status equivalent to that of a State in regards to regulating air quality. The EPA granted this petition, but in so doing it went one step further, for reasons I haven't looked into, and held that the1905 act opening up the land for homesteading did not withdraw the lands from the Reservation.

That decision is contrary to prior court rulings and it came as a surprise to everyone including, in my opinion, the Tribes, which haven't really fully reacted to it yet.  The Tribes are being careful to take this a bit slowly, as they aren't exactly sure what this would mean.  It does have real implications, as it would mean the transfer of some authority in Riverton to the Tribes, such as law enforcement, and potentially taxation. The town is ignoring the ruling, which is probably a solid legal approach to take, and the State of Wyoming is challenging it.  Ultimately the question will end up in Federal Court.

What this in no way means, however, is what is being reported on a right wing news oriented website (one I hadn't heard of before a person sent me the link to it). That site reported, amongst other things:

It appears that Obama’s habitual abuse of his executive action is beginning to rub off on the rest of his administration.  His EPA soldiers are now telling a town in Wyoming that they no longer have the right to live there. And what’s worse? They’re giving away that land that the residents rightfully bought to other people.

No, that's not accurate at all.  Not even close.

You don't have to be an Indian to live on an Indian reservation, and real property on the Reservation works the same way as it does everywhere else in Fremont County.  If you buy property, and anyone can, you record the deed in the County courthouse in Lander.  Riverton is still in Fremont County and still a town in Wyoming no matter what happens.  Just as Ft. Washakie, which has always been a Fremont County town in the Reservation, and Lander which has always been a Fremont County town outside of the Reservation, are.  

This is not to say that there wouldn't be a lot of legal implications to the boundary being reestablished. There certainly would be.  Most particularly questions regarding law enforcement, civil law, and the taxation, would be present. And there might, or might not, be somethings to work out regarding the schools, although I would note that there are Fremont County school districts which are part of the state system that are inside the Reservation.  For some reason, Fremont County has a lot of school districtions.

But what's so interesting here is how quickly this story morphed into a false one in some quarter, and a quarter that apparently had little if any connection with Wyoming.  Somebody must falsely believe that only Indians live on Indian Reservations, which is completely inaccurate.  Indeed, the Wind River Tribal Court doesn't even bother to determine if jurors it calls are enrolled Tribal members or not, and it calls Indians and non Indians in for jury service, just as the Ninth Judicial District calls in people from inside, and outside, of the Reservation for jury duty.

This sort of thing seems common in the Internet age.  Local stories, like the one about New Jersey's George Washington Bridge, get blown up out of proportion as if they are of national importance.  And a story like this, which is full of legal nuances, gets reported in some quarter as if the President has some vague relationship to it, and as if this means non Indians are about to be expelled from their homes. 

Odd how things become told as stories.

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*  The Shoshone were a fairly large Tribe, in releative terms, in the 19th Century and were truly indiginous to the region, unlike the Sioux and Cheyenne which were displaced in the East and moved to the West, becoming Plains Indians in the process of adopting the horse.  For this reason, i.e., immigration, the Cheyenne and Sioux were regarded as invaders, as they really were invaders, by the tribes already present in the region, such as the Shoshone and Crow.

The Shoshone were a very widespread tribe and are known by other names, probably not surprisingly. The Bannock, for example, are Shoshone.  While regarded as a separate tribe, the Comanche are actually Shoshone as well, distinct culturally as they were the early adopters of the horse in the 18th Century, as opposed to the rest of the tribe which only adopted horses some years later.

Tuesday, January 4, 1910. Disaster in Lander.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 4: 1910  Orchard Opera house destroyed by fire in Lander.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Forces of Muhammad Salih bin Yusuf, the last independent ruler, or kolak, of the Wadai Empire, defeated the French at Darfur.

The USS Michigan was commissioned.

Last edition:

Monday, January 3, 1910. Junior High.

Labels: 1900s, 1910, Berkeley California, California, Education, Teenagers